Wednesday, December 3, 2014

I am very happy that Xiaodan has successfully defended her PhD. It has been a pleasure to work with her over the past years. Xiaodan’s research topic was on the effect of lake N fixation on watershed N export. I still remember when she identified the question. We were looking at cyanobacteria from the Charles River under the microscope. Xiaodan noticed quite a few heterocysts (N fixing cells) in Anabaena. I initially dismissed this as unimportant, because the Charles River is generally believed to be P-limited (thats another point to discuss sometime). Anyway, she said, OK, but what will happen to all that N when it discharges to Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay? That was the initial question that eventually developed into a PhD thesis. Congratulations, Xiaodan!